The Stansted 15 were acting to uphold justice, not to contravene it. The state must not be able to use sweeping powers granted for the so-called fight against international terrorism to aid its agenda elsewhere.

The talks were bold indictments of a state that has conscripted all areas of society into enforcing its racialised immigration control system, a state that has turned bankers, landlords, teachers, nurses, doctors and even NGO workers into border guards. A state that speaks of humans as ‘illegals’.